Osaka Castle

오사카성

Osaka Castle is a famous Japanese castle in Chuo Ward, Osaka. Toyotomi Hideyoshi began building it in 1583 on the site of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji temple, and finished the castle in 1597. Its keep has green roofs and gold decorations and sits on huge stone walls.

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At a glance

Country: Japan
Location: Osaka, Japan
Built: 1597
Height: 55 m
Type: Castle

Quick answers

Where is Osaka Castle?

Osaka Castle is in Osaka, Japan.

When was Osaka Castle built?

Osaka Castle was built in 1597.

How tall is Osaka Castle?

Osaka Castle is about 55 m tall.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi's castle: a keep with green roofs and gold ornaments atop massive stone walls.

The grounds cover about 61,000 square metres and are now Osaka Castle Park, a favourite spot for cherry blossom viewing. Two moats surround the castle, and thirteen structures such as gates, turrets and the old gunpowder magazine are designated important cultural assets. The keep you see today is a 1931 concrete copy, rebuilt as a museum.

A castle meant to outshine another

Hideyoshi based the plan on Azuchi Castle, the headquarters of his former lord Oda Nobunaga, but he wanted to surpass it in every way. The plan had a five-storey main tower with three more storeys underground, and gold leaf on its sides to impress visitors. The inner keep was completed in 1585. Hideyoshi died the year after the castle was finished, and it passed to his son Hideyori.

Siege and fire

In the winter of 1614, Tokugawa Ieyasu besieged the Toyotomi family in the castle. His army of about 200,000 was twice the size of the defenders, yet the castle's outer walls held. Ieyasu then had the outer moat filled in. In 1615 his army broke through, Hideyori and his mother died, and the castle burned. The Tokugawa shogunate rebuilt it between 1620 and 1628, but lightning destroyed the main keep in 1665.

The keep today

The castle was damaged again in the 1860s and by bombing in 1945. The present keep, finished in 1931, is made of reinforced concrete. It looks like the old one outside but holds a museum inside, with five storeys outside and eight inside. The granite walls from the 1620s are built from huge interlocked boulders without mortar, and many carry the crests of the families who supplied them. One famous boulder is the Octopus Stone.